NEWS

Lost Aptitude leads field
for Tropical Park Derby

Posted: Monday, December 28, 2009 5:54 PM

by Steve Bailey

Michael Bruder’s and Frank Jones Jr.’s Lost Aptitude will try for his third consecutive victory and first graded stakes score as he takes on 11 challengers in the $100,000 Tropical Park Derby (G3) on New Year’s Day on the turf at Calder Race Course.

The bay Aptitude colt enters the 1 1/8-mile race for three-year-olds off back-to-back turf victories in a 1 1/16-mile allowance race on November 8 and the 1 1/16-mile Grand Canyon Handicap on November 28 (video), both at Churchill Downs.

Trained by Dale Romans, Lost Aptitude won three of his five starts as a two-year-old.

Ken and Sarah Ramsey’s homebred Becky’s Kitten won a 1 1/16-mile maiden special weight race on August 27 at Woodbine prior to a runner-up finish in the Summer Stakes (Can-G3) on September 19 (video) at Woodbine.

The Kitten’s Joy colt enters off a ninth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf (G2) for trainer Wesley Ward in his previous start on November 7 during the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita Park.

Gilbert Campbell’s homebred Act of Duty colt Fly by Phil has made all four of his career starts at the Miami track, capturing his previous two—a one-mile off-the-turf maiden special weight race on September 20 and a one-mile and 70-yard allowance race on December 11—by a combined margin of 13 ¼ lengths on the dirt for trainer Kathleen O’Connell. He finished second in each of his first two career starts, also on the main track.

Two other Calder-based horses with a chance are Michael Sucher’s Our Champion and William J. Sims’ Gator Tiger, first and second last time out and separated by only a neck in an allowance race on the turf course on November 29.

Grand Canyon third-place finisher Cat Park also will contest the Tropical Park Derby.

Steve Bailey is deputy news editor for Thoroughbred Times

Tropical Park Derby